Government to build flu vaccine factory

Sat, 11/14/2009 1:18 PM  |  The Archipelago

BANDUNG: The government will start the construction of a factory producing influenza vaccines, with a total investment of Rp 1.3 trillion (US$130 billion), an executive said Monday

The factory will be located in a complex owned by state pharmaceutical firm PT Bio Farma in Bandung.

Bio Farma director Iskandar said the Health Ministry had also built a White Leghorn chicken farm in Cisarua, West Java, to supply clean, embryonated eggs as media in which the virus strains would be grown.

He said the government would import 48,000 White Leghorn samples from Japan.

The factory, which will use Japanese technology, would need 35,000 eggs a year, he explained.

"We hope the construction of the factory can be completed in a year," he added.

He said Bio Farma had been working with the ministry, the Eijkman Institute and Airlangga University for two years in research and development.

"The research reached a clinical load stage in February and the vaccine can be used for clinical trial in the next three to six months," he said,

So far, he said Bio Farma was conducting research to produce H1N1 and H5N1 vaccines which were developed based on strains from WHO and local samples. - JP

Copyright © 2008 The Jakarta Post - PT Bina Media Tenggara. All Rights Reserved.